A financial document that had been MIA until two weeks ago finally made an appearance at the Oxford Town Commissioner's meeting Tuesday, October 10. To refresh your memory, the town originally said there was no policy, then they said they found a policy but it had not been passed, and then, finally, there IS a policy and it was signed into effect back in the late 90's.

At Tuesday night's meeting, the policy surfaced and was handed out to citizens with a revision done by the Town Manager. The revision was not that different from the original except some minor word changes, some deletions regarding diversification and maximum maturities and this interesting deletion she proposed: "Because the Town's investment policy includes the maintenance of bank deposits, each Commissioner and the Clerk-Treasurer shall disclose any substantial personal investment or management role in any financial institution which conducts business in Talbot County." That section was marked "proposed delete."

The question is, why?

The good news is that, after a few minutes of discussion, the Commissioners decided to keep the newly discovered investment policy. As it was announced, citizens at the meeting applauded.

The next discussion focused on the creation of a town financial advisory group and the work session to develop that group. Once the date was set as October 19, 2023, at 5:00 p.m. the next issue was whether the public should be allowed to participate in the work session. Two Commissioners, Costigan and Greer said yes, appointed Commissioner Delean Botkin said "no" claiming that there would be too many voices, too many ideas, and it would take too long. She also pointed out that there was not an agenda for this work session. The work session was scheduled.

Other items on the agenda included a petition begun by Nick Papson and signed by 180 citizens to beautify the fence line outside the Oxford Maintenance and Water Treatment area on JL Thompson Drive. The town will create an informal committee to create a plan to present to the Commissioners.

The meeting was adjourned to a closed meeting, requested by the Town Manager, for "personnel and legal issues,"